The word Selfie was named Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year!

Selfie’s are nothing new, Artist have been painting themselves for centuries. If they wanted to paint they used themselves as models. I remember the Red River College Photography Course we were asked to do a self portrait. Everyone hated this assignment, but it was the first time I ever tried to take a photo of myself. It was 1988 and I had a hasselblad which is a 120 mm format film camera. The hasselblad in my opinion was “the best” film camera money could buy. It came with prestige and it separated the professional photographer from those amateurs using 35mm cameras.

I remember having a long cable release as the camera didn’t have a self timer, which would have been easier. Well…. my arm wasn’t long enough as it distorted my whole face! So I thought, I can only show a part of my face if I want to look good. It was a time where you had to “think” about what you photographed. Every click cost you about $1.00 then there was the time for processing and printing. Hopefully you didn’t screw up along the way. As you can see from my contacts my exposures were not that consistent!

Here are the contacts of my attempt at a self portrait…..hilarious!

You’re probably wondering which one I choose to print and hand in, well here it is and I received a A+! I still have the print and mat, the final size of this is 15×15. I still prefer the square format….

If I was a student today this image would be retouched, to remove all those dark shadows under my eyes. Here is my version retouched and a selfie today non retouched!